Reading, Writing, Rowling

Get a preview of the latest Harry Potter academic anthology, featuring a diverse array of essays on the series. We're joined by Dr. Lana Whited (Ferrum College), editor of The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter (University of Missouri Press, 2002), one of the first anthologies focused on the series, and now the second volume, The Ivory Tower, Harry Potter, and Beyond (University of Missouri Press, 2024). Quite a bit of Potter scholarship is contained in anthologies devoted entirely to the series, possibly due in part to the historical difficulty of getting Potter studies articles accepted by academic journals, but these anthologies have helped to develop a community around the subject. Only the first three Potter books had been released when the first volume was compiled; by the time of the second, Lana was able to seek out chapters not only on the full series but also Fantastic Beasts and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child as well as The Casual Vacancy, the Cormoran Strike books, and even The Ickabog. The new ant